Compitum

Daniele Miano, Fortuna: Deity and Concept in Archaic and Republican Italy, Oxford, 2018.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
256 pages
ISBN : 9780198786566
60 GBP

What is good luck and what did it mean to the Romans? What connections were there between luck and childbirth, victory in war, or success in business? What did Roman statesmen like Cicero and Caesar think about luck? This volume aims to address these questions by focusing on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and though the chronological scope of the discussion presented here covers the archaic age to the late Republic, she was still a widely recognized allegorical figure during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The primary reason for Fortuna's longevity is that she was a conceptual deity, symbiotically connected to the concept of chance and good fortune. When communities, individuals, and social groups interacted with the goddess, they were inevitably also interacting with the concept: renegotiating it, enriching it with new meanings, and challenging established associations. All the available literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources on Fortuna are explored here in depth, including analyses of all the attested sanctuaries of the goddess in Italy, an updated study of inscribed gifts offered to her by a variety of individuals, and discussion of how authors such as Cicero and Caesar wrote about Fortuna, chance, and good luck. This study of the goddess based on conceptual analysis serves to construct a radically new picture of the historical development of this deity in the context of the cultural interactions taking place in ancient Italy, and also suggests a new approach to polytheism based on an exploration of the connection between gods and goddesses and concepts.

Marion Bellissime et Frédéric Hurlet, Dion Cassius, Histoire romaine, livre 53, Paris, 2018.

Éditeur : Les Belles Lettres
Collection : CUF (série grecque)
LXXXIX + 151 pages
ISBN : 9782251006215
39 €

Texte établi par M. Bellissime, traduit et commenté par M. Bellissime et F. Hurlet.
Le livre 53 de l'Histoire romaine de Dion Cassius retrace les événements des années 28 à 23 à Rome et hors de Rome, et s'attarde en particulier sur l'année 27 et la confirmation au pouvoir d'Octave après la bataille d'Actium. Dion Cassius imagine un discours de prétendu renoncement au pouvoir du futur empereur, qui assure en réalité à ce dernier le Principat puis le titre d'Auguste. L'historien se livre ensuite à une analyse très fine et extrêmement renseignée des institutions au moment du passage de la République au Principat. Cette étude se conclut notamment avec le récit de l'année 23, dont l'importance pour la mise en place du nouveau régime est bien mise en évidence par Dion.

Source : Les Belles Lettres

David Potter, Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint, Oxford-New York, 2017.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
Collection : Women in Antiquity
288 pages
ISBN : 9780190692759
14,99 £

Two of the most famous mosaics from the ancient world, in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, depict the sixth-century emperor Justinian and, on the wall facing him, his wife, Theodora (497-548). This majestic portrait gives no inkling of Theodora's very humble beginnings or her improbable rise to fame and power. Raised in a family of circus performers near Constantinople's Hippodrome, she abandoned a successful acting career in her late teens to follow a lover whom she was legally forbidden to marry. When he left her, she was a single mother who built a new life for herself as a secret agent, in which role she met the heir to the throne. To the shock of the ruling elite, the two were married, and when Justinian assumed power in 527, they ruled the Eastern Roman Empire together.
Their reign was the most celebrated in Byzantine history, bringing wealth, prestige, and even Rome itself back to the Empire. Theodora was one of the dominant political figures of her era, helping shape imperial foreign and domestic policy and twice saving her husband from threatened deposition. She played a central role trying to solve the religious disputes of her era and proactively assisted women who were being trafficked. An extraordinarily able politician, she excited admiration and hatred from those around her. Enemies wrote extensively and imaginatively about her presumed early career as a prostitute, while supporters elevated her, quite literally, to sainthood.
Theodora's is a tale of a woman of exceptional talent who overcame immense obstacles to achieve incredible power, which she exercised without ever forgetting where she had come from. In Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint, David Potter penetrates the highly biased accounts of her found in the writings of her contemporaries and takes advantage of the latest research on early Byzantium to craft a modern, well-rounded, and engaging narrative of Theodora's life. This fascinating portrait will intrigue all readers with an interest in ancient and women's history.

André Pelletier (éd.), Flavius Josèphe. Guerre des Juifs. Livre V, Paris, 2017.

Éditeur : Les Belles Lettres
Collection : Classiques en poche
374 pages
ISBN : 9782251447186
14,90 €

Texte établi et traduit par : André PELLETIER, Introduction et notes de : Olivier MUNNICH
Juif, né en Judée au Ier siècle de notre ère, l'auteur est, au début de la guerre contre Rome en 66, général des forces juives en Galilée. Assiégé, il trouve le moyen d'échapper à la mort et passe dans le camp romain. Pour la suite du conflit, il est, auprès des empereurs flaviens, témoin des opérations.
Le livre V est consacré au siège et à la prise de Jérusalem en 70. La longue description de la ville, du Sanctuaire et du Temple atteste certaines traditions que l'on ne retrouve que plus tard dans les textes rabbiniques. Son exhortation au parti de la guerre – qu'il réduit à des « factieux » – offre paradoxalement notre seul accès au credo des combattants juifs. En un tableau pathétique, l'auteur évoque les souffrances de la population, livrée à la faim, à la cruauté des factieux et à la dureté des Romains. La réflexion de Flavius Josèphe combine avec force réminiscences de la littérature grecque et traditions déjà caractéristiques du judaïsme rabbinique.
Ce texte a eu de profonds échos dans la littérature de l'Antiquité chrétienne, mais il a aussi inspiré des reprises remarquables au xvie siècle lors des guerres de Religion.

Source : Les Belles Lettres

Kathleen Riley, Alastair J. L. Blanshard et Iarla Manny (éd.), Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity, Oxford-New York, 2017.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
400 pages
ISBN : 9780198789260
75 £

Few authors of the Victorian period were as immersed in classical learning as Oscar Wilde. Although famous now and during his lifetime as a wit, aesthete, and master epigrammist, Wilde distinguished himself early on as a talented classical scholar, studying at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford and winning academic prizes and distinctions at both institutions. His undergraduate notebooks as well as his essays and articles on ancient topics reveal a mind engrossed in problems in classical scholarship and fascinated by the relationship between ancient and modern thought. His first publications were English translations of classical texts and even after he had 'left Parnassus for Piccadilly' antiquity continued to provide him with a critical vocabulary in which he could express himself and his aestheticism, and a compelling set of narratives to fire his artist's imagination. His debt to Greece and Rome is evident throughout his writings, from the sparkling wit of society plays like The Importance of Being Earnest to the extraordinary meditation on suffering that is De Profundis, written during his incarceration in Reading Gaol.
Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity brings together scholars from across the disciplines of classics, English literature, theatre and performance studies, and the history of ideas to explore the varied and profound impact that Graeco-Roman antiquity had on Wilde's life and work. This wide-ranging collection covers all the major genres of his literary output; it includes new perspectives on his most celebrated and canonical texts and close analyses of unpublished material, revealing as never before the enduring breadth and depth of his love affair with the classics.

Alfonso Traina (éd.), Virgilio. L'utopia e la storia: Il libro XII dell'Eneide e antologia delle opere, Bologne, 2017.

Éditeur : Pàtron
220 pages
ISBN : 9788855533638
22 €

Bucoliche – Georgiche – Eneide – indice analitico-glossario – appendice: Il libro dell'Eneide – postfazione.

Source : Pàtron